Ultraviolet shows up in quite a poor light

By Pat Hogan
Collegian Editor
March 22, 2006

The opening of Ultraviolet depicts the heroine of the movie stylized and emblazoned across the covers of fictional comic books. Many reviewers have jumped at this analogy saying that watching Ultraviolet is like reading a comic book.

Frankly, that’s an insult to comics.

I have seen a fair bit of poorly-made science fiction in my day, whether it be the David Lynch adaptation of Dune or the more recent film adaptation of Doom, but Ultraviolet takes poor story-telling to a new level.

The story takes place in a not-to-distant future where a blood disease has caused humanity to be polarized along the lines of the infected and the pure. What does this disease do to the infected? It gives them greater strength, speed and reflexes. Well, whatever you do, don’t sneeze on me, I wouldn’t want to catch that.

Milla Jovovich reprises the part of “sci-fi action babe” that put her on the map in the Resident Evil movies and The Fifth Element, and plays nurse turned infectee Violet. That’s why the movie is called Ultraviolet. Get it? The story follows her quest to capture a weapon from the totalitarian germ-nazi who makes life miserable for those among the infected, what with his soldiers (who, judging by the way their armor shatters when hit, are apparently dressed in glass clothing). All bets are off however when this weapon turns out to be a nine-year old boy.

Nothing is more annoying in a movie than a wasted opportunity. Jovovich’s character has recently had a state-forced abortion. As a result, there are a few genuinely interesting scenes between Jovovich and the rescued child, as the warrior woman thinks about the life that might have been. But wait! Here are more glass-armored goons we need to kill. As a result, this sub-plot is shoved to the background so many times, by the end it’s almost forgotten.

There are certain things that you just generally accept from a movie as a given. One of them is that, although you may disagree with or dislike the plot, story and characters, those elements will at least make sense or be understandable. Ultraviolet continually confounds the moviegoer by presenting things that just don’t possess any logical consistency.

If you were worried about catching germs, why would you plug the holes on your nose with filters when there’s an even bigger hole right below it? Further more, such a big deal is made about this disease being transferred by touching infected blood. In such a case, why would it matter what you were breathing anyway?
Isn’t it a bit foolish to make security guard armor out of an easily breakable material such as glass?

What exactly are the practical implications of a sword that’s on fire, and how exactly do you spread that fire to an adversary’s sword short of dumping gasoline on your opponent?

The answer to all these questions are: it looks cool. Having a villain with little filters in his nose is cool. Having glass shatter off endless lines of henchmen looks cool. And a sword-fight where the swords are on fire? Dude!

There are so many places where the director sacrificed logical consistency in favor of “looking cool,” I can’t even recall them all.

Another example comes early on, when those in the rebel faction Jovovich belongs to are referred to as “hemophages” and said to be discriminated against because they possess a rare, highly communicable blood disease. But then suddenly, hemophage is supplemented by the word “vampire” and all the connotations that term possesses. Yet the movie never dispels those connotations, leaving yet another unanswered question for viewers.

Unanswered questions are not necessarily a bad thing, but they are when they prevent moviegoers from even making an attempt to believe in the world your movie is trying to create. Ultraviolet is filled with them, and I wasn’t sure whether to blame the director or the writer. Thankfully, they’re the same person, so I can place the blame squarely on the head of Kurt Wimmer.

Last, but not least, there are the special effects. Usually in mind-less action flicks like this, you have a guarantee that although the plot may be bad and the characters useless, at least you’ll see some nice computer generated images. On this front, Ultraviolet is at least ten years behind, if not more. Throughout the movie, all of the CGI shots, particularly those of the fictional city the movie is set in, look so poor, it seems as though they were rendered on a Sega Saturn. It almost makes Tron look like King Kong when it comes to the use of computer animation.

Ultraviolet may have been a horrible movie, but in the end all it really took from me was two hours and five bucks (matinees are the only way to go). Overall, the real losers in Ultraviolet are the actors who will never ever include clips from his movie in their demo reels. I can even see a dismayed Kurt Wimmer watching the DVD and thinking to himself, “Glass armor? What was I thinking?”

That ends up to be the greatest unanswered question of them all.

hoganp1@lasalle.edu